The Gift of the Magi (Adapted)

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Della counted the money for the third time: one dollar and eighty-seven cents. Most of it was in pennies, each one squeezed out of the grocer and the butcher by such stubborn bargaining that her cheeks still burned at the memory. Tomorrow was Christmas, and after months of saving, she had nothing to show for it. There was only one thing to do. She sat down on the threadbare couch and cried.

The apartment was small and cost eight dollars a week, and downstairs, on the letter box, a card bore the name "Mr. James Dillingham Young." The name had sounded grand in the days when Jim earned thirty dollars a week; now that his pay had shrunk to twenty, it seemed too long for the man who owned it. But whenever he climbed the stairs and opened the door, he was simply "Jim," and Della hugged him until he laughed.

The couple had only two treasures. One was Jim's gold watch, which had belonged to his father and to his grandfather before him. The other was Della's hair: a cascade of brown waves that reached below her knees, and that shone like a river in the light. Had a queen lived across the airshaft, Della would have hung her hair out of the window to dry, just to make the royal jewels look cheap.

That afternoon, she stood at the window for a long time, watching a gray cat walk along a gray fence, and then she turned abruptly, her eyes bright but her face drained of all color. She pulled the pins from her hair, and it fell. A minute later, in her old brown jacket and hat, she was hurrying down the stairs and into the street. She stopped at a shop with a sign: "Madame Sofronie, Hair Goods of All Kinds."

"Will you buy my hair?" asked Della, breathless. "I buy hair," said Madame. "Take off your hat, and let me see it." The brown cascade poured down. Madame lifted it with an expert hand and weighed it like a merchant. "Twenty dollars." "Give it to me quickly," said Della.

For the next two hours, she searched the shops for the perfect present. At last, she found it: a platinum chain for Jim's watch, plain and elegant, valuable for its material alone, without any decoration. It was exactly like Jim. He was proud of his watch but glanced at it only in secret, embarrassed by its shabby leather strap. She paid twenty-one dollars, and she went home with eighty-seven cents.

When Jim came home at seven, he stopped in the doorway, perfectly still, his eyes fixed on Della, wearing an expression she could not read: it was not anger, or surprise, or disapproval. "Jim, darling, don't look at me like that," she said quickly. "I sold my hair because I could not face Christmas without a present for you. It will grow back. It grows very fast. Say Merry Christmas, and let's be happy." "You have cut off your hair?" he asked, as if he could not believe the obvious. "Cut it off, and sold it," she said. "Don't you like me all the same?"

Slowly, Jim took a package from his coat and put it on the table. "Open it," he said. "Then you will understand." Della tore the paper, and she screamed with joy. A second later, the joy became tears. Inside was a set of combs, made of tortoiseshell with jeweled edges, the very ones she had admired for months in a shop window, and which were meant for hair that she no longer had.

She held them against her chest, and at last she was able to smile. "My hair grows so fast, Jim!" Then she remembered, and leaped up. "Oh, you haven't seen your present!" She held out the chain on her open palm. "Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks." Jim did not move. He dropped onto the couch, folded his hands behind his head, and smiled. "Della," he said, "let's put our presents away for a while. They're too good to use right now. I sold the watch to buy your combs."

Each of them had sacrificed the one thing that would have made the other's gift useful, and on the surface, their gifts were futile. But the two of them, in that shabby little room, were perhaps the wisest people who had ever given presents at Christmas.